Nick Medina

Indigenous People, myths-legends, mysteries, horror, pow-wow, family, family-dynamics, MMIP, MMIW, relatives, religious-symbolism, religious-practices, mysterious-deaths, supernatural, paranormal, rural, urban-fantasy, thriller, fiction, terror, riveting, secrets, demons, dual-perspectives, triggers, violence, PTSD, reservation, alcohol-issues, suspense*****

Myths and legends get real.
Perplexing strange events from the past return with something a lot different from reality. This is one scary book but not of the slasher, vampire, or shoot-em-all variety. Love the characters and the writing style!
I requested and received a temporary EARC from Berkley Publishing Group/Berkley via NetGalley. Thank you.
#MMIP #MMIW… (more)

First off, this book has been done a disservice by being marketed as a horror novel. Sure, it hints at horrific things done to indigenous girls and women, but there is nothing supernatural going on like the book blurb would lead you to believe.

I would say it's structured more like a thriller, with multiple timelines, only that the content warning in the beginning spoils the mystery so since I knew what was going on it wasn't very thrilling. Now, that's on me, I know. I'm not a person that needs content warnings, so I really don't know why I read it, but going forward I'll do my best to skip over any warnings a book may have in the front.

I also think that the timeline jumping around in a non-linear fashion is a detriment to the story being told. I found it confusing and eventually I just stopped reading the chapter headers and used context clues about whether it was before or after Grace disappeared.

I did enjoy the story and believe it's an important story to be told, I just wish the execution was neater and the format was tighter. The author shows a lot of promise, and this is a competent debut.… (more)